Picture Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Each day Beast/Netflix
The docuseries craze is now so rampant—particularly on streaming providers, which must not ever cease feeding the insatiable subscriber-base beast—that it feels prefer it’s solely a matter of time earlier than each wild, incredible, and surprising story receives the multi-part remedy.
Pepsi, The place’s My Jet? is a byproduct of that development, recounting the outlandish and altogether moronic saga of John Leonard, who spent treasured years of his life attempting to gather on a non-existent prize. It’s definitely a story in contrast to another, though on the premise of director Andrew Renzi’s four-part Netflix affair (which premieres Nov. 17), it’s additionally a trivial one, even by at present’s low nonfiction requirements.
The topic of Pepsi, The place’s My Jet? is Pepsi’s 1996 try and win the “Cola Wars” in opposition to rival Coca-Cola through a promotion dubbed “Pepsi Factors,” which promised prospects the chance to make use of factors—earned by shopping for sodas—on a wide range of branded items.
Pepsi Factors was the brainchild of celebrated advert company Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn. Furthermore, it was infused with the identical humorous teen power and humor that marked the corporate’s many different star-studded commercials, which featured the likes of Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Shaquille O’Neal, and Cindy Crawford. The supermodel even briefly seems right here to wax nostalgic concerning the nice honor of being requested to affix her fellow celebrities on the Pepsi advertising crew—and, specifically, to headline the 1992 TV spot that helped flip her into an trade icon.
Pepsi Factors was a gimmick designed to steer youngsters to change their cola allegiance. Its business featured a hip teen boy accumulating all types of swag, culminating with him exhibiting as much as college in a Harrier fighter jet. Over that concluding picture, on-screen textual content famous that mentioned navy car price 7 million Pepsi Factors—a far-flung sum that clearly marked the thought as a joke.
Nonetheless, Seattle school scholar Leonard took the provide severely, and as he explains in Pepsi, The place’s My Jet?, it wasn’t lengthy earlier than he was determining purchase the jet. The mathematics was daunting: Since a 12-pack was price 5 Pepsi Factors, Leonard must buy 1.4 million 12-packs (i.e. 16 million cans), at a price of $4.3 million, to rack up the requisite credit. Then, he’d have to determine the place to seek out 600,000 cubic ft of storage to deal with his drinks.
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Leonard didn’t have that sort of dough, so he turned to his buddy and fellow mountain climber Todd Hoffman, an entrepreneur who was intrigued by his younger good friend’s proposition. The issue was, even when it was authorized to personal the jet (and so they may subsequently work out a method to monetize it), there was an opportunity that the competition would finish earlier than they might procure the mandatory Pepsi Factors. Thus, they gave up on this inconceivable dream—a minimum of, that's, till Leonard realized that particular person Pepsi Factors might be bought for 10 cents, that means 7 million would price him “solely” $700,000. With Hoffman again on board as an investor, they despatched a test to Pepsi to assert their chosen reward.
Leonard and Hoffman recount this with excited glee in Pepsi, The place’s My Jet?, whereas Pepsi advert executives Michael Patti, Jeff Mordos and Brian Swette recall this flip of occasions with a mix of astonishment and exasperation. Leonard’s obvious ace within the gap was that Pepsi’s business featured no positive print indicating that the Harrier jet provide was a gag, and the corporate’s ensuing alteration of the spot—first to extend the jet’s Pepsi Factors price, after which to notice that they had been “simply kidding”—solely emboldened the duo, who took these maneuvers as admissions of guilt.
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A authorized battle was born, and it will definitely drove Leonard to accomplice up with Stormy Daniels’ future legal professional Michael Avenatti, who put the proverbial pedal to the steel in his efforts to get Leonard what he wished, even when it meant alienating Hoffman within the course of.
Hoffman and Avenatti’s less-than-kind phrases for one another are the amusing highlights of Pepsi, The place’s My Jet?, with the previous popping out on prime by suggesting that Avenatti’s present legal predicament—he’s interviewed below home arrest as a result of federal convictions for tax evasion, extortion, fraud, and embezzlement—is the results of the identical sort of blackmail-ish scheme he pushed Leonard to perpetrate in opposition to Pepsi.
Sadly, the collection is undone by each Leonard’s incapability to justify his quest as cheap, and the director’s failure to solid that mission as emblematic of some bigger, worthwhile trigger. Leonard talks about being “owed” the jet, and Hoffman, Avenatti, and others contend that Pepsi was willfully deceiving the general public by making deceptive guarantees. But proof that this was a deliberate ruse by no means materializes.
There’s a lot joyous discuss poking Pepsi within the eye with this demand, which in the end got here earlier than a choose. Nonetheless, Leonard and Hoffman’s anti-corporate sentiment—and particular want to stay it to Pepsi—rings hole. Leonard, it seems, didn’t wish to reveal something about capitalist commerce or client rights together with his campaign; he simply coveted that jet and found an obvious loophole that may let him get it.
Consequently, Pepsi, The place’s My Jet? comes off as the story of a juvenile dream and endeavor that, because of its brazen lunacy, grew to become a quick nationwide information merchandise. Pepsi’s advert males don’t deny that their very own carelessness begat this mess within the first place. Nonetheless, even when one isn’t susceptible to siding with huge enterprise, it’s straightforward to agree with their common sentiment that Leonard’s marketing campaign was a dumb and pointless waste of everybody’s time, cash, and power.
Pepsi, The place’s My Jet? proves equally inane, this regardless of the late “revelation” that Pepsi had mucked up a previous promotion within the Philippines that led to riots and deaths (thereby supposedly implying a sample of duplicity). Director Renzi gussies up his motion with archival-material montages, dramatic recreations, animation, Coke-Pepsi style exams, and different flashy gadgets. He additionally often cuts away to a present-day Antarctica mountain climb by Leonard and Hoffman that illustrates the duo’s persevering with friendship and spirit of adventurousness.
What he doesn’t do, nevertheless, is convincingly convey why Leonard’s pursuit was legally or ethically legitimate, a lot much less fascinating sufficient to warrant a virtually three-hour investigation. Just a few minor situations of comical outrageousness however, the collection is simply empty energy.